Taxi-rank ID app breaches passenger privacy: experts

By Mahesh Sharma

May 19, 2014 — 5.15pm

A new Victorian government proposal to capture identification details of taxi passengers and drivers in a bid to eliminate criminal behaviour threatens newly minted privacy principles, an expert has warned.

The proposal to furnish taxi "marshals" in areas of high alcohol-fuelled violence with technology that collects personal ID documents and taxi licence plates is expected to become a feature of catching cabs across Geelong, before being rolled out to other cities if deemed successful.

Taxi companies are unhappy about the spread of services apps such as Uber.Credit:Joe Armao

It is part of an $300,000 announcement by Victoria Transport Minister Terry Mulder for eight councils, including Glenelg, Stonnington, Manningham, Mitchell, Baw Baw, Warrnambool, Geelong and Wodonga, to install new seating, signage and pedestrian barriers at "safe taxi" ranks.

Marshals will use a new tablet app, developed at a cost of $30,000, that saves identifying travel information of both taxi drivers and passengers. This includes the taxi number; the passenger's name, mobile phone number and a form of ID, such as a driver's licence. The marshal records this manually and uploads the data to the council's secure servers. It's proposed the data will only be accessible to police when following up a complaint.

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Steve Bentley, City of Greater Geelong's manager of events, said the technology was about providing a safe ride for passengers, and a safe workplace for drivers.

"It's not going to solve all the problems but it's going to move in the right direction. We know who you are, know where that journey was, when that transaction took place, and it's trackable," Mr Bentley said.

"Some of the behaviours that happen late at night and with intoxicated patrons can make life quite unpleasant for taxi drivers. In order to ensure we get the best taxi drivers, we need to make sure the workplace for drivers is respectful, safe and they can get paid."

Mr Mulder said other councils would follow Geelong in implementing the new journey tracking system.

Taxi apps such as Ingogo, GoCatch, and Uber track every journey and record the details of the passenger and driver. They promise that visibility ensures a safer experience than catching cabs anonymously but these claims remain largely untested.

This isn't the first time Geelong has attempted to track taxi journeys. A similar plan was floated in 2008, when a $14,000 scanner was to be used at "safe city" taxi ranks.

Darren Palmer, associate professor in Criminology at Deakin University said community opposition at the time saw the proposal buried. Since then excessive violence in night-time entertainment precincts, including in Geelong and Sydney's Kings Cross, has brought customer tracking, including the ID scanner, back.

It's understood the Geelong council asked Privacy Victoria to independently assess the app's privacy impact. While Privacy Victoria doesn't give a "tick of approval", it is believed to have told the council that scanning users' driver's licences, as is done in some nightclubs, was asking for too much information. The scanning feature was subsequently dropped.

Mr Palmer said that by capturing users' identifying information, the measure could breach three of the 13 Australian privacy principles, including the prohibition on the collection of personal information unless it's necessary; the requirement of an individual to provide a unique identifier; and allowing an individual the ability to transact anonymously where this is lawful.

Deakin University's Mr Warren said that whenever Geelong patrons raised issues about privacy, they were told to go to another pub. So people no longer questioned their right to privacy, he said, simply accepting their fate.

"We do have strong evidence that the protocols are left to the trust of the administrators of the data, which is usually left on site. There's a lot of trust associated with this which we think is problematic," Mr Warren said.

Mr Palmer said the big issue was the number of databases that were increasingly created to catalogue citizens' everyday behaviours and the supporting frameworks that foster accountability.

On their own, he said, ID scanners, whether used upon entry to a pub or a cab, don't guarantee passenger safety.

"It's about the quality of the personnel, on-the-ground, operating the system," Mr Palmer said. "They need proper training, accountability, payment, etc, and if you don't get that right, you open yourself up to a lot of problems that the ID scanners won't overcome."

"It's crucial they're high-quality people that can manage the situation, without escalating."